


Baker Street

by azriona



Series: Advent Calendar Drabbles 2013 [23]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Advent Calendar Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 22:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azriona/pseuds/azriona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Home is sometimes what infuriates us the most.  Because Home is what brings us comfort in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baker Street

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mildredandbobbin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mildredandbobbin/gifts).



> The twenty-fourth installment of this year’s Advent Calendar Drabbles. Because I am lazy, I’m titling the drabbles with the prompt. Today’s prompt is from , who wanted fluffy Johnlock in Baker Street. 
> 
> And so concludes the Advent Calendar Drabbles for this year. There are a couple of prompts I did not write; if you did not see yours, it’s because I have a Plan for it and it’ll show up in the next few months in another form. (Two of these are Heart ‘Verse related; one is specific to Fiddle’s fifth chapter.) The next installment of Mise will be posted tomorrow morning, there’s a Sherlock Secret Santa story that I’m going to start writing in a moment, and when Mise concludes and the dust settles from Sherlock’s premiere, I plan to start posting Heart3. 
> 
> Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The wind whipped through London, cold and wet with rain that was nearly ice. John huddled into his coat, wishing he had a spare hand to flip his collar up, but the bags he carried dug painfully into his hands, and he tried to shift them to a more comfortable hold. No luck. The rain came down in torrents, every cabbie ignored him as they passed, and his shoes were more soaked with every step. 

The rain had come out of nowhere; John could have sworn that when he’d left Baker Street an hour before, the sky had been, if not clear, at least free of any dark and threatening clouds. It’d been the making of a good day, really. No murders, but Sherlock for once hadn’t minded, involved in an experiment which included fingers and acid and microscopes and watching a clock as chemicals did horrible things to frozen skin. (John didn’t like to ask questions.) Mrs Hudson had been baking something downstairs, filling the house with the smell of good things. John had a new book from the library that he’d been itching to read for weeks. And there was milk in the fridge. 

And then it had all gone wrong. The acids burned through the table; Mrs Hudson’s stove caught fire; the new book turned out to have been destroyed by a toddler wielding a purple crayon, determined to destroy someone else’s property. 

And the milk in the fridge was sour. 

So, a trip to the Tesco. And then the rain. 

John sighed. So much for a lovely day. John wasn’t sure how it had all turned so wrong when he wasn’t looking. 

Speedy’s was closed for the day already when John reached home, or he might have stopped in for a tea and a sandwich before braving the possibly toxic interior of 221B. John managed to get inside the foyer to 221 without dropping anything. He wondered if Sherlock had cleaned up the mess. Probably not. 

Once inside and out of the driving rain, John set down the shopping with a grateful sigh. Music floated down from upstairs: Sherlock on the violin, of course, and very likely ignoring whatever mess the acid had made, with the theory that John would clean it up. Which he would, John reflected. At least the smell of smoke and burning flesh had dissipated while he’d been gone. That was something to be grateful about. And the heat was working marvelously well; just being in the blissfully warm and dry foyer made John feel much better. He shook off his coat and hung it on the banister, where it dripped onto the floor. John could imagine the puddle it’d make before too long, and walked down to Mrs Hudson’s door and knocked. 

“Just a tick!” she called, sounding inordinately cheerful for a woman whose stove had caught on fire not forty-five minutes previously. When she opened the door, she smiled widely, her apron tied around her waist, a bit of flour on her cheek. 

John wondered if he’d stepped into an alternate dimension. Hadn’t she been in angry tears not so long before? 

“Sorry, Mrs H, it’s raining buckets outside. Could I borrow a towel for my coat?” 

“Of course, dear! I don’t know why you went out in that weather – come in and sit for a mo, and have a scone.” 

John stepped inside, feeling his toes squelch inside his shoes, and stared into the kitchen, where earlier he’d seen the black stove, smoking and hot and utterly useless. The offending appliance was gone, replaced by something in gleaming white, which appeared to be functioning perfectly well. 

“Mrs Hudson?” asked John, staring at the stove. 

“Isn’t it lovely? Showed up just after you left. Here’s the inaugural batch of scones – don’t drop the plate now, and be sure to share with Sherlock.” 

“Right,” said John, a bit winded, as he looked at the stove, and then at the plate scones in his hand. He could feel their warmth through the plate on his hand. “The towel?” 

Mrs Hudson draped the bright pink towel over his shoulder and gave him a comforting pat, and John was back out in the foyer before he realized it, still marveling over the new stove in Mrs Hudson’s kitchen. 

He set down the scones only long enough to arrange the towel under his coat, and then he went up the stairs to 221B. The violin music continued, soft and soothing and friendly, as Sherlock played. It was one of John’s favorites, he realized as he reached the landing; a peace offering, or perhaps bribery, but either way, John couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed. 

Opening the door would have been tricky; this was alleviated by the door to the kitchen already being open when John reached it. John slipped inside, and dropped the bags on the table without a second thought, before he realized what he’d done – what he’d been _able_ to do. 

The kitchen table was clean, cleared of all experimental debris. 

The flat smelled crisp and clean, as if someone had thrown open the windows to air out the rancid and burnt smells. 

The sink was clear, the washing up done; the counters were empty, cleared of the flotsam and jetsam of two men disinclined to pick up after themselves. The electric kettle had been filled with water, and there, sitting next to it, were two mugs, each already prepared with a tea bag and the preferred amount of sugar. 

Violin music floated into the kitchen, soothing away all the bad memories and smoothing the surface until all John could think of was how good it was to be home, and warm, and safe. John chuckled, shaking his head, and turned on the kettle. He put away the groceries, but left out the milk. He set the plate of scones on a tray, and when the kettle clicked off, he poured out the tea, placed the mugs on the tray, and carried it out to the sitting room, where Sherlock still played. 

There was a fire in the grate, flickering softly; the rain drummed against the windowpanes, but it was dim and warm and comfortable in the little flat. John set down the tray and stood behind Sherlock, watching as the younger man drew the bow against the strings, worked the music out from his bones and into the air. It was seduction, of course: Sherlock’s way of asking for forgiveness. All of it – the music, the clean kitchen, the tea. 

The last of the ghosts of earlier were driven away; John remembered them, but they didn’t haunt him anymore. He watched Sherlock play against the backdrop of the rain outside, and remembered how he’d hesitated to come upstairs just a short while earlier, and was glad he’d taken the chance and come home instead of finding comfort anywhere else. No other comfort could be as good as this, walking back into the belly of the beast and finding home. 

John didn’t care if he was being manipulated. He wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s stomach, pressed his cheek against Sherlock’s spine, and waited for the song to end so that Sherlock could turn around and embrace him in return, but equally content if it never would, because right now, with the music and the warm scones, the tea and the driving rain held at bay, John was pretty damn pleased with the world.


End file.
